Comments on: The Predictor Who Got It Right (Mostly)http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html
Home of The Saturday Evening PostTue, 31 Mar 2015 20:55:19 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: Carolinehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-213499
Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:46:55 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-213499On the case of seeing only positive change….. are “giant guns”, “aerial war-ships” (think helicopter gunships and fighter jets), “forts on wheels” (think tanks and armoured personnel carriers) and flying machines with hundred-mile telescopes (think military satellites) really improvements to our lives?
He foresaw also that coal and oil would become more expensive as they began to run out and that we would increasingly need to turn to hydroelectricity for power; possibly not until 2100 though!
]]>By: Carolinehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-213490
Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:31:46 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-213490Oops…. I was wrong, he did say that horses would become “practically extinct”…. but was talking in relative terms. The working horse IS practically extinct and he did say that the rich would still keep them for racing, hunting and exercise. Which they do. And most of us rarely see a horse from one month to the next, whereas they were part of daily life in cities and countryside alike in 1900.
]]>By: Carolinehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-213482
Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:14:27 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-213482Watkins’ did not predict that the horse would be “practically extinct” but that the horse *in harness* would be as scarce as yoked oxen already were in 1900.
]]>By: P.M.Lawrencehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-209289
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:19:52 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-209289I should have added, the author was probably thinking of the balance being upset and European powers co-operating in dividing up Latin America against U.S. wishes. Even with the First World War that would have been practical as late as 1939 if U.S. forces weren’t invited in (i.e., leading to joining the U.S.A.), and he probably didn’t foresee the decline caused by the World Wars.
]]>By: P.M.Lawrencehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-209287
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:11:14 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-209287It was never the Monroe Doctrine on its own that stopped European expansion into the more convenient parts of Latin America before the U.S.A. became a great power (say, in the 1880s or ’90s). Before that the U.S.A. was a second rank power, almost negligible away from its frontiers, but diplomacy coupled with European divisions and interests in not having to cover the overheads of occupation usually stopped that sort of penetration. So you had (say) Britain owning the Argentinian railways but not paying for its police, thus having an interest in stopping Germany taking over, and so on.
]]>By: Oreohttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206768
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:52:34 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206768This is a very interesting article. I especially like the final prediction of the old article, which sounds like MRI and x-ray technology.
]]>By: Gunnar Arnkvisthttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206620
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:40:21 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206620He didn’t predicted the new religion that keep people obsessed 24 hrs a day – Reality television series.
]]>By: nohttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206448
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:58:26 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206448his population predictions are rather low, if you consider that he thought all of latin america would be part of the US
]]>By: Rasmushttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206365
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:09:55 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206365He wasn’t completely wrong about some of the things listed under completely wrong:
University education is free in many countries. And though we don’t receive food in tubes, food is of course delivered to us by a person in a car, which is close enough. Many smaller restaurants in China do in fact send their dirty dishes away to have them washed, and get clean ones back, wrapped in plastic.
Very interesting is his view on the Union though. It is a bit sad to see how the world has changed its view of the Union a century later.
]]>By: Flavio Serrahttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206331
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:32:16 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206331“High speed trains” is not the only prediction which happened to be true in many countries but USA (and therefore listed as partially wrong). “University education” is virtually free to every man and woman in most European countries, and its cost fell in USA too, until Reagan took over… i.e. the resources collected by the central governments have been growing enormously throughout time, and they could indeed have been used to pay for welfare and education. Pity that USA chose to privilege the military budgets instead…
]]>By: Michael Karnerforshttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-206213
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:54:58 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-206213The article lists “A university education will be free to every man and woman” as being “very, very wrong”. Depending on which country you live in, this is not(!) wrong at all. In my home country Sweden, university education does not come for a fee. University education *is* free in Sweden, and many countries have the same.

You have to aquire your books somehow. However used and hand-me-down books are easy to get hold of. Then it’s just a matter of having a place to live and means to feed yourself. To this end, the state grants loans to anyone enrolled in higher education for up to six years.

]]>By: Jeff Nilssonhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-202910
Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:03:53 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-202910I want to take the opportunity at the start of a new year to thank our loyal reader and contributor Ima Ryma.
I thought for sure he/she/they wouldn’t be able to find a rhyme for “Watkins,” but this week’s contribution cleverly avoided that problem.
Thanks for all your work.
We look forward to more.
]]>By: Jeff Nilssonhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-202908
Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:00:30 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-202908Actually, Watkins predicted the airplane three years before the Wright Brothers’ flight. As usual, he was wrong in some details but quite far-sighted in others.
“There will be Air-Ships but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations.
Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.”
Due to space restrictions, I couldn’t include all of Watkins’ predictions. Maybe I should post the entire article….
]]>By: Ima Rymahttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-201732
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 09:10:19 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-201732No mosquitoes, roaches or flies,
‘Twas predicted way back for now.
But they still flourish – no surprise,
And they will outlast us – here’s how.
Humankind, communicably,
Is connected quite fast and sure.
Old bugs will bring new bugs to be
Spread to all humans with no cure.
All will share new deadly virus,
And all the human species dies.
Hardy life forms will survive us –
The mosquitoes, roaches and flies.

A pessimistic prediction?
Not for a bug if you be one.

]]>By: Charles Neumannhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/12/31/history/post-perspective/predictor.html/comment-page-1#comment-201619
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:58:32 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=47327#comment-201619Very interesting. He didn’t mention air travel, which many believed was coming. He sure got the speed of sending photographs and the far reach of telephones. His idea of central America joining the U.S. because of European expansion was somewhat understandable given the way they carved up Africa and parts of Asia but he apparently forgot the Monroe Doctrine. All aninals gone except those in Zoos and horses and insect pests nearly extinct was a strange prediction, but if the population was as great as he expected maybe I can see why he thought so. Mr. Watkins was hardly a seer but had some interesting ideas.
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